1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-jet printer, and more particularly to an ink-jet printer used suitably in case of printing on a medium such as a recording paper, for example, conducting color printing at a high speed and in a high resolution by means of numerical control.
In the present specification, the term “medium” means a variety of recording media comprising papers such as plain paper, as a matter of course, and further includes also a variety of materials such as a resin material of PVC, polyester or the like, and other materials such as aluminum, iron, and wood.
Furthermore, the term “ink jet printing” in the present specification means printing methods realized by ink-jet technology according to various manners which have heretofore been well-known including various types of continuous method such as a binary deflection method, and a continuous deflection method; or a variety of drop-on-demand ink-jet methods such as a thermal ink-jet method, and a piezoelectric ink-jet method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, an ink-jet printer the whole operations of which are controlled by a microcomputer, in which an ink head travelling on a medium, for example, a recording paper fed from a sheet feeder in a breadth direction of the recording paper (hereinafter referred optionally to as “main scanning direction” in the present specification) is used, whereby a predetermined printing is made on the recording paper according to an ink-jet method is well known.
Furthermore, such a device which is obtained by adding a function for cutting a picture image or the like printed on a recording paper to another function of image-formation for producing a picture image on a recording paper through a printing operation in the above-described ink-jet printer has also been proposed.
Such ink-jet printer including an image-forming function and a cutting function is provided with an ink head which is a component for realizing an image-forming function of image-formation by printing an image on a recording paper based on image data, and a cutter which is a component for realizing a cutting function by cutting the recording paper based on the image data.
In the above-described ink-jet printer provided with an ink head and a cutting head, generally, the ink head is coupled separably to the cutting head by means of a coupling means, and further the ink head may be engaged with a stationary region of the ink-jet printer by means of an engaging means in an engageable and detachable manner.
In the case when an image is formed on a recording paper based on image data by means of the ink head, the engaging means causes the ink head to disengage from the stationary region, and at the same time, the coupling means couples the ink head with the cutting head, so that the ink head is transferred associatedly with the cutting head.
On one hand, when a recording paper is cut out based on image data by means of the cutting head, the engaging means causes the ink head to engage with the stationary region, and at the same time, the coupling means decouples the ink head from the cutting head, whereby only the cutting head is transferred.
In these circumstances, since an engaging means which makes an ink head engageable with a stationary region of a conventional ink-jet printer provided with the ink head and a cutting head in an engageable and detachable manner is constituted in such that the ink head engages or disengages automatically with the stationary region due to a relative movement among three components of the ink head, the cutting head, and the stationary region, there is such a problem that the constitution of the ink-jet printer becomes complicated, and assembling operations therefor become also complicated.